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  • Mistymisty@digipres.club
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:15 PM

    RE: digipres.club/@misty/116845925

    To expand on that a little - I think a lot of people still think of game preservation as putting a bunch of retail game discs on a shelf, but that hasn't been a realistic preservation strategy for several generations now. Realistically speaking, the unofficial (pirate) mirrors of Sony's CDN are the actual way that games are actually being backed up and PS4/PS5-era discs are contributing essentially nothing to that.

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Replies

  • Mistymisty@digipres.club
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:18 PM

    From the PS4 onward not only have most games not been released on disc, but the content on them is 100% the same as what's available from Sony's servers (and most games need patches to be fully playable anyway). Buying a game on disc is for your own personal use/convenience, your own "I want to pull a game off the shelf and play it". I get how it's easy to imagine that's how institutional/organized preservation efforts are happening, but it's not really the case.

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  • Mistymisty@digipres.club
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:19 PM

    Realistically speaking I think PS3/PSP-era discs were still useful in that not all games came out digitally in the first place, and digital releases weren't always identical to physical releases. That's no longer true; the games that have still been coming out just mirror (some of) the content that's been served up from Sony’s servers, and it represents a smaller and smaller percentage of the games that exist.

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  • wohaliwohali@timeloop.cafe
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:19 PM

    @misty I know it used to be more of a consideration for bad or unreliable bandwidth.

    I guess they just don't care anymore?

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  • wohaliwohali@timeloop.cafe
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:20 PM

    @misty in the 90s we used to call this the "modem fallacy" - "It's ok, I have a modem, I can download what I need"

    well, i guess better hope the network remains neutral and functional

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  • Earthshineearthshine@masto.hackers.town
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:59 PM

    @wohali @misty Unfortunately the ubiquity of the internet has caused people to take for granted that somewhere, someone else has always saved something, and you can always just find it and get it from them when you need it. But there's no central authority to enforce this, and the infrastructure it is built on is nowhere near as resilient as people treat it. Localized long term resilient data storage is something everyone should always have as part of their overall information strategy.

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  • Jan Lehnardt :couchdb:janl@narrativ.es
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:22 PM

    @misty @wohali it pains me to see that this would kill the used-games market. Plenty of folks will be priced out of playing.

    On the flip side, I try to buy as much as I can as physical media, so I can give stuff to the kids in my life when I am done with them.

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  • poetasterpoetaster@mastodon.gamedev.place
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:31 PM

    @misty sony never cared. But, they knew something like 15% of the audience, me likes, were die hard media people who only by the console with disc support. At a premium price. There is probably a negligible margin now. My son has it inculcated (switch/ps5) that we buy media. But, he's the only one of his peer group (6 or 7 mates). Dimishing returns. Maybe go full steam os box?

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  • Owen Nelsononelson@mastodon.social
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:22 PM

    @misty I tend to think more about consumer rights more than preservation per se, when it comes to physical media. It's too easy for something to be de-listed if censors get motivated (not unimaginable). More likely it's stupid distribution rights type issues like we're seeing now, I guess. Less dramatic.

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  • Mistymisty@digipres.club
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:24 PM

    @onelson Yeah, I think that's a much better angle to think of. And much more applicable to most peoples' lives!

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  • Josh Simmonsdotstdy@mastodon.social
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:29 PM

    @onelson @misty there's nothing stopping physical games being de-listed, and everyone involved would do this if they were legally compelled. a physical disk doesn't really help you there since it still only represents a licensed copy.

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  • Mistymisty@digipres.club
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:30 PM

    @dotstdy @onelson Has Sony ever actually rejected a license for a physical disc install? I genuinely don't know if they even have the capability to do so.

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  • Josh Simmonsdotstdy@mastodon.social
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:38 PM

    @misty @onelson doubt they have, but it's basically the model microsoft were going for with xbox one, and regardless if you're in a "remove entire game" situation, then that's far easier and doesn't require any kind of unique code on the disk.

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  • ROTOPE~1 ⭐️rotopenguin@mastodon.social
    Jul 1, 2026, 7:21 PM

    @onelson and "the only system that can play them" deteriorates too.

    It's not just capacitors, there has been a suicide battery in consoles since the PS3. When that fails, it stops being a PS3 at least until it calls home.

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  • David Moleschronodm@glammr.us
    Jul 2, 2026, 12:31 AM

    @misty @linguistory I can’t remember the last time I put a disc in a console and was able to play the game entirely offline. Some time in the Xbox 360 / PS2 era, maybe?

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